Database Moderator & Ponyologist

I don’t really know Platus that well so I’ll start with the generic question, Why the nickname “Platus”?

It’s a really old name I’ve been using for years. I was reading a lot of Plato at the time, and I learned that Plato was actually a nickname (his real name was Aristocles) he earned which came from the word “platon” which meant “broad” (as he was apparently a skilled wrestler). I always thought that Plato was a pretty cool guy (he teaches Aristotle and doesn’t afraid of anything!) and so I decided to steal the name. How “platon” became “Platus” has been lost to history.

WHYDIDYOULEAVE US?

YOUBROKE MY HEART!

DO NOTWORRY! OURLOVE IS ETERNALANDSHALLBRIDGETHESPAN OF SPACEANDTIMEFORETERNITY!

Same question as with the rest:

How do you feel about your new mod powers?

Were you surprised when you got it offered?

I was very surprised. I had figured that since most of my contributions were FIM related, and since there were already several brony mods on the site, that I would be a bit redundant. (But I guess that logic is out the window.) As for the mod powers – I love them. This is the first time I’ve ever been a mod on a forum community, and it feels great.

Don’t you loooooove deadpooling stuff?

How is your Ulysses class!!!!!!

What is your favorite not-pony meme?

If you could be an animal, what would you be?

The Ulysses class is AWESOME! Just got the first essay assignment and I’m not even mad. The Telemachiad is going DOWN!

my favourite non-pony meme is “Milhouse is not a meme.” It’s so delightfully meta. Steampunk is a close second.

And a housecat, if I could be anything. Then I could pet myself.

In 1991 the Soviet union split up. What were the primary issues and problems that were a big part of splitting up that are not part of the economy?

TAKETHAT!

It is very difficult to divest the breakup of the USSR form Gorbachev’s response to the looming economic collapse which had by then become impossible to avoid. The collapse itself was due to a number of factors – some the USSR’s fault and some not. The country’s poor, ill-educated, and thinly dispersed population combined with its large geographic size made any large-scale economic redevelopment a dicey proposition at best, and the hazards of warfare (the massive WW2 casualties combined with the expense of fighting the Cold War) meant that it was impossible for the Soviets to maintain the level of social spending that they needed in order to give its people a decent quality of life (and the omnipresent corruption and nepotism didn’t help things either). This was combined with campaigns by the US to convey to the Russian people the (greatly exaggerated) economic prosperity that the Americans lived in under capitalism – thereby fermenting both a black market economy and a great deal of civil unrest. The cost of policing its people (and its satellite states) made the idea of meaningful economic development even more absurd than it already was. Poor political leadership in the latter days of the USSR caused these bubbling factors to tip into a complete collapse – forcing Gorbachev and his economic team to change form a fully-centralized command economy to a privatized capitalist economy is less than a year. Though Russia had a great deal of help from the West in this venture (they, after all, wanted their impending victory to go as smoothly as possible), there is simply no way for such a massive change to go forward without widespread economic disintegration. Russia’s currently sorry economic state can be seen as an echo of this collapse. Thus, we can see that the non-economic factors sprang largely from political mismanagement and the need to maintain a fighting force capable of challenging the US should the Cold War turn hot. However, even these issues are merely subsets of the economic problems – and it takes very little effort to draw a line from any “non-economic” cause directly to the economy.

Alright, that looks like every question that was up when I got here has been answered. Keep them coming!

Database Moderator & Ponyologist

1) (le Fluttershy voice) I would appreciate it if you didn’t, if … if that’s ok with you.

2) I spend a lot of time in the MLP image area – which (a) is where all the ponies are, and (b) attracts a lot of trolls and so needs regular attention (you would not believe some of the horrible stuff that I’ve had to delete from there). I also do some entry editing (mostly cleaning things up and adding sources) and I participate in mod discussions. I haven’t been as active lately because I started grad school in September, so my free time basically doesn’t exist anymore.

Conversationalist

Dear Platus:
1:
2: Are the rumors about you not even lifting true?
3: What is your opinion, if any, on Brave New World?
4: What if you favorite ship, if any, with Twilight Sparkle?
5: Which is better, Mario Kart or Mario Party?

Database Moderator & Ponyologist

Dear Platus:
1:
2: Are the rumors about you not even lifting true?
3: What is your opinion, if any, on Brave New World?
4: What if you favorite ship, if any, with Twilight Sparkle?
5: Which is better, Mario Kart or Mario Party?

1. You . . . you really do?

2. I don’t lift, I twirl.

3. I think it did a better job of predicting the future than Nineteen Eighty Four did, though I think that the latter is a better-written novel.

4. I usually just go for broke and ship Twiligh/Sparkle (or, as I call it, “Twarkle”). It’s really the only one that I think could work.

5. The only game in the Mario Party series that I ever played was Mario Party 2, which I bought just after someone broke into my house and stole all of my games (along with some other stuff) and which I then played alone several times a day for six months – and NEVERONCE did I get to knock someone into a bottomless pit with a banana peel. I think my preference should be clear.

Database Moderator & Ponyologist

Alright. It actually stops hurting once you quit screwing around and accept alcohol into your life. My course work is actually all finished, so right now I’m just finishing up the last of my marking (for a class I TA) while I prepare my applications to PhD programs.

Verbose

Deactivated

I don’t think so. He’s spoken fairly openly about his boyfriend in other threads on his own.

Would you work with me on creating a standardized list of tags for images? Basically, just a list where we all agree to use “4 pane” instead of “4 panel,” “4-pane,” “4-panel,” “four paneled” or other variants to describe an image that has four panels.

I actually want to get other users and moderators to come up with a list we can all use since we don’t have aliased tags.

Also, how much does it bother you that the second sentence is a fragment?

Database Moderator & Ponyologist

I don’t think so. He’s spoken fairly openly about his boyfriend in other threads on his own.

Would you work with me on creating a standardized list of tags for images? Basically, just a list where we all agree to use “4 pane” instead of “4 panel,” “4-pane,” “4-panel,” “four paneled” or other variants to describe an image that has four panels.

I actually want to get other users and moderators to come up with a list we can all use since we don’t have aliased tags.

Also, how much does it bother you that the second sentence is a fragment?

I would be happy to help you with the tags. It sounds like a good idea.

Also, I’m not even mad. I’m a grammar Communist – not a grammar Nazi. The language should belong to everyone!

Verbose

Deactivated

Alright. Once I decide to set my mind to it, I’ll bump this thread and will PM you. I’m looking forward to at least being able to tag images properly (even if the results are a little odd, according to Brucker’s post.)